Population Bomb
by Beastbot X
Summary: Is Multiple losing control of his powers... or his mind? Fourteenth in my XMen: Evolution series.


"Population Bomb"

by Beastbot

Two more months.

Two more months to the day, and he'd be graduating out of this school full of morons and into… well, another school of morons.

Bayville High, to be precise.

From what he had heard, the rest of the teenage X-Men weren't having any better of a time at Bayville High than he was having at East Bayville Middle School. Heck, if anything it was worse for them, due to an utterly apathetic—was that the word?—new principal that had taken over after Kelly had become mayor of the town. From what he had overheard, the new principal—Donaldson? Ronaldson?—was so afraid of lawsuits he refused to take any side in any conflict. Fights broke out in the school all the time, and no one was given anything more than a figurative slap on the wrist.

Still, though, he hated being the only one in the entire middle school who was a Mutant. It sucked. He had to ride this stupid bus to and from school everyday instead of just hitching a ride with one of the X-Men who had a car. And it sucked especially because every time he bumped into someone, there temporarily appeared another one of him, and it freaked everyone out, including him. He had never mentioned it to anyone except Professor X, but it was confusing. When he… split… it was sort of like he was in two places at the same time, but not really. The other him had his memories, his behavior, looked like him, WAS him… but wasn't him. He sort of had a psychic connection with the other him(s), knew what they were thinking, knew HE was the "original," but otherwise the other him(s) acted on their own. He wanted to be able to control the other hims better, but Professor X had told him that that probably wasn't ever going to happen, due to the nature of his powers. Then Professor X had gone into some long explanation as to why that Jamie had tried hard to understand, but really didn't manage to follow after the first two sentences. Still, since all the other hims were… well… him, it didn't really prove to be much of an issue, as needless to say he always agreed with himself.

Jamie's eyes fixated on the local Gamestop passing by the school bus window he had been staring out of.

_C'mon, cut it out, Jamie. Gamestop! Video games!_

He generally was a positive thinker, and usually he managed to successfully focus on things he liked. Still, every now and then his thoughts would wander to topics he was less than enthused about—particularly during times like this, when all he could really do was wait until the bus finally arrived at the Institute (which was almost last on its route, natch).

It had been particularly hard lately ever since Sam had… had died. He hadn't been as close with Sam as Bobby or Jubilee, but they had still hung out quite a bit. Plus, Sam (and Rahne) were pretty much the only ones who had treated Jamie like a teenager.(Yeah, he was thirteen, but that was technically a teenager, right?) And Rahne and him really didn't have much in common, so they didn't tend to talk to each other a whole lot.

I mean, yeah, he was the youngest X-Man. So what? Rahne was older than him by like, nine months, but everyone treated her the same as the others. Maybe 'cause she liked more "adult" things like reading, soccer, and knitting. (Seriously, who _liked_ knitting? Besides Grandmas?) That and she had gone through a bit of a growth spurt recently so she _looked_ a bit more adult, and here he was, barely an inch taller than he was a year ago. Wasn't he due for a growth spurt, too?

_Jamie, seriously. Back on track. Stay positive._

Jamie shook his head to clear it, focusing on what he had meant to be focusing on.

_Gamestop. Video games…. Oh, that new _Ratchet & Clank_ game is coming out next week! Suh-weet!_

"It's gotten pretty good reviews, from what I've heard."

"Yeah, I heard about that….too?" Jamie said, turning away with the window to converse with… himself.

Two other Jamies were also occupying the bus seat on the other side of the aisle, looking at him. All the other kids in the surrounding seats were looking at him as well-- although they all had various smirks or smiles on their faces, due to "Multiple" accidentally using his powers again. The three other Jamies were just looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to reply.

_Okay, this is weird….Why didn't I realize I had split?_

"I heard on the 'Net that Dr. Nefarious is back for this one," said one of the Jamies on the opposite side of the aisle.

"Oh, I know! I loved him, he was my favorite villain," replied the Jamie sitting next to him.

"Really?" said the fourth Jamie. "I liked his butler Lawrence the best."

"Well, yeah, that's what I meant," said the second Jamie, "But you can't get Lawrence without Dr. Nefarious, so…."

"Ah, okay. Gotcha."

"Wait, okay, hold up!" said the original Jamie, trying to stand up and failing as the bus lurched to another stop, which drew a few giggles and laughs from the kids in the nearby seats.

"What is it?" said all three of the other Jamies at the same time. More laughs.

"Look, why are you…" Jamie forced himself to calm down and start over. "How did you guys split away without me knowing? And why are you talking to each other?! _We all share the same mind_!"

"We do?" said the fourth Jamie, looking confused. "Then how come you didn't know that we split?"

"Actually, that weirded me out a little, too," said the third Jamie to the fourth. "How DID we do that?"

"Well, I had to at least be able to partially read his mind," said the second Jamie. "I mean, I knew that I—uh, that he—was thinking about _Ratchet & Clank_."

"Wait, how can you partially read someone's mind?" asked the fourth Jamie. "Isn't that an all-or-nothing kinda thing?"

"Okay, that's enough," growled the "real" Jamie. Sucking in his stomach—something he had used over the years to help him visualize what he was about do-- the other three Jamies all tumbled into him one after the other as they always eventually did, and Jamie turned back towards the window again, his brows furrowed as he tried to ignore the laughter coming from the rest of the bus.

* * *

As Jamie opened the front door to the Institute, he nearly ran into Kitty, Cessily, and Rahne, who were all talking to each other as they walked towards him.

"Oh! Sorry!" said Rahne, stepping out of the way of Jamie as Cessily and Kitty moved to one side to make room. "Almost didn't see ye there, Jamie."

Jamie noticed that the three girls were already dressed in the X-Men sports uniforms. He was actually mildly surprised, as he usually got home after a game had already started. Bayville High let out an hour earlier than the Middle School, so most of the X-Kids were already doing something by the time he arrived.

"Oh, uh… that's okay," Jamie said, stepping back a bit. "Wasn't…uh… looking where I was going."

Jamie glanced up at Rahne—yes, he had to remind himself, he had to look _up_ at her now, just like with _everyone else_ except Amara—and felt his cheeks starting to turn red. Wow, she _had_ grown in the last few months… and in more ways than one….

"W-well, anyways, Jamie," replied Cessily, shaking Jamie out of his hormone-induced reverie, "We're all about t-to play a game of softball, if you want to join in."

"Yeah, c'mon, it'll be fun," replied Kitty, smiling. Jamie wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a bit of sadness present even through Kitty's smile. Ever since they had come back from that fight with Nimrod, Kitty had seemed… different. And it wasn't just Logan and Sam's deaths, either, there was something else bugging Kitty, but he wasn't able to put his finger on what.

"Uh… you mean Mutantball?" Jamie said, putting on a bit of a mischevious grin.

"Of course Mutantball!" Rahne replied.

"Yeah, what else would a group of Mutants play?" said Cessily, smiling.

"Sounds like fun," Jamie said. "Hold on a minute, let me just put my backpack in my room and change into my uniform."

"Alright, but don't wait too long!" Kitty said as the three girls started to walk down the entryway steps. "Weather report says a pretty big downpour's headed our way in a few hours, so we need to get this game done with before then."

* * *

"THERE you are! Man, I was wondering when you'd get back, I've been hiding out in here all day!"

Jamie stiffened as he closed the door to his room and turned around to see… himself, staring back at him impatiently from a chair in the corner of his room. Unlike most of the other X-Men, Jamie had a room to himself because of his relatively young age.

"What… what are you talking about?!" Jamie said, setting down his backpack on the floor and quickly forgetting it as he walked over to himself. "How did I… you… get in here?!"

"What are YOU talking about?" the other Jamie replied, turning off the Nintendo DS he had apparently been playing. "I split you off this morning and then you forgot about me! I've been hiding around in your room all day so that people didn't think we skipped school!"

Jamie thought back to this morning, mentally reconstructing every time he had made duplicates of himself. Putting his things together, helping to make breakfast, helping Roberto take care of an assignment while the other him continued to get ready to leave… no, he was pretty sure he had pulled all of the duplicates back into himself when they were finished with their tasks…

"Um, no," Jamie said, puzzled. "I… don't think I left anyone behind…"

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Jamie said, exasperated as he stood up. "Weren't you paying attention!? Oh, and I beat the final boss of Pokemon Emerald. We need to get another game."

"What!? Man, I was looking forward to getting to the final level all month! Who was it? How'd you beat him?"

"Gee, that's a nice attitude to have. Blame ME because YOU left me here all day. What was I supposed to do? There's nothing on TV during the school day, you know that."

Jamie just stood there for a minute, flabbergasted. He wasn't used to any of his duplicates giving him mouth, of all things. "Uh…um… sorry, I guess."

"Whatever. Look, hold on a minute while I absorb you."

"Wait, what? No, _I _absorb _you._"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"I split you off, not visa versa! What life are you living!?."

"No, I split _you_ off! You're the one who just walked out of here, leaving me behind!"

"That's not true, and you know—"

Jamie just stopped mid-sentence, shaking his head. _What the heck am I arguing with _myself_ for?_

Jamie merged with his other self, effectively ending the argument.

As Jamie opened his closet and started to search through his garments for his softball uniform, a memory suddenly flooded into his brain.

_So THAT'S how he—I—beat the final boss. Duh, should've seen that one coming… these games are getting too predictable…_

* * *

Ray was the first one to see Jamie running toward the softball field behind the mansion, and so was the one who waved Jamie over to his position.

"Hey there, Jamie," Ray said as they both got closer to each other. "We were wondering where you were. Hey, X-23 didn't accept the invitation—big surprise—and Professor X is still busy tutoring Jean about something or other down in the sub-basement, so my team's missing a few players. Would you mind helping out?"

Jamie looked around, mentally counting the number of players present. Even.

"Hey, why don't we just add two of the others to our team?" Jamie asked. "Then each team would still be the same size."

"Gee, nice math, Multiple," Ray said, rolling his eyes, "But we kinda already went through the process of picking teams. And I sorta picked you because your powers are pretty useful in this game. Now, could you get to the outfield and fill the open positions out there, buddy?"

_The outfield. Great, the positions no one else wants._

Still, a (forced) smile on his face, Jamie nodded and ran to the outfield, splitting into three, with each Jamie taking their appropriate spot.

"Alright, everyone!" Jamie heard Hank yell from his usual position as the umpire. "You all know the rules, powers permitted, so long as no one else gets hurt and it doesn't make progress of the game _impossible_. So let's plaaaaay ball!"

The game quickly began, with Amara up to bat. It was hard for Jamie to look at her and not feel some pity well up in his stomach—the girl's permanent burn scars looked even uglier in the broad daylight, and Amara knew it. He had hardly even seen her in the past few months—barely anyone had. She was almost as much of a recluse now as X-23, mostly only coming out of her room to eat and go to school. And even then, she didn't talk that much—she clearly wanted as little attention focused on her as possible.

Still, this was the first sports game she had participated in since she was hex-burned by Wanda back before Christmas. She looked a little—emphasis on _little_—more confident in herself, which was a small relief. Jamie had really been worried about her.

X-23, though… man, she just creeped Jamie out. He was glad she barely ever talked to the others, and just stuck to either the Danger Room or her own room. Even though she was the third-youngest of all the X-Men—older than only Rahne and himself—from what he had heard, she hadn't only just attacked them that one time, but had killed countless people in cold blood. That was just… he didn't even want to _think _about that mindset.

"Multiple, heads up!" came Ray's voice from across the field, snapping Jamie out of his thoughts. Looking up, he saw a ball flying through the air at an extremely fast speed—a quick glance confirmed that, yes, it was indeed Roberto who was now at bat, with Amara having struck out and Rahne on first base.

Jamie quickly started to run backwards, along with both of his duplicates on either side of him. Unfortunately, with all three Jamies not looking where they were going, they all tripped over the same fallen tree branch that was right in their path at the edge of the outfield. All three of them fell towards each other, bonking their heads together. All three reached up and rubbed their heads simultaneously.

_Well, so much for catching—_

"Good job, Multiple!" yelled Ray from the other end of the field. "Roberto, you just got owned!"

"Roberto, you'rrrrre out!" said Hank as, to Jamie's surprise, a ball sailed over his and his duplicates' head to a waiting Kurt, who in turn teleported over to the batters' stand and tossed it to Hank.

Looking back, Jamie saw another one of his duplicates—wait, he had duplicated himself _three_ times?—running up to where him and two of his duplicates were waiting semi-dazed on the ground.

_Alright, that's it. Something weird's going on, _Jamie thought as he stood up and dusted the dirt off of his pants. No ugly grass stains, at least, though the freshly-seeded grass was still just starting to poke up through the burnt soil. _After this game's over, I'm going to see Professor X about this. My powers aren't working right._

"No, the problem is, they're finally working right _for the first time_," Jamie heard his voice say from behind his field of vision.

Utterly freaked out by that last statement, Jamie instinctively made a mental command to draw the other three duplicates into him. However, before Jamie could even begin to comprehend that something else was wrong, the world quickly withdrew from view and went black.

* * *

For a split second as the world came back into focus and he stumbled forward on the carpet, Jamie wondered what had happened.

Confusion only reigned for such a short period of time, however, because it only took that split second for him to realize he had another six hours' worth of memories suddenly in his head.

Sucking in a deep breath, Jamie forced himself to calm down as he shakily stood up. He was in his room again, and judging from the sounds coming from outside the closed blinds, the predicted downpour was currently hitting Bayville hard.

_Yeah, it's night time. Even though it feels like I was just playing softball five seconds ago._

"So, how does it feel?"

A sneer etched its way onto Jamie's face at the sound of his own voice. Jamie immediately turned around, swinging a fist at his duplicate, who, caught by surprise, took it right to the jaw. The other Jamie fell down to the ground, rubbing his jaw, as two other Jamies split from him because of the impact.

"OW!" said the Jamie on the floor. "What the heck was that for?!"

"Don't act stupid, I know me!" Jamie said, his face flushing red with anger as three more Jamies divided off of him. "You absorbed me! ME! How the heck did you do that!? I'M the _real_ Jamie!"

"No, you're not, moron," said the punched Jamie as the two Jamies next to him helped him to his feet. "You're just the Jamie who _decided_ he was in charge. I just decided to show you what it was like, getting shut away every time you were 'done' having multiples of yourself and only being 'called out' when you needed yourself to be in a buncha places at once again. See how much it sucks? Even though you remember it all, you just missed six whole hours of your life!"

"Shut up, you big fat liar! I AM the real Jamie, and you know it!"

"Dude, how do you know I'M not the real Jamie!?"

"Because that… that's impossible!" Jamie protested, sweat starting to pour down his forehead as another four Jamies inadvertently split from the Jamies standing by his side. "I've always been there, I've always been the one splitting out into you guys, not visa versa!"

"Then how come I already absorbed and split out YOU, doofus?"

"I agree with Jamie," chimed in another Jamie. "You don't KNOW you're the real Jamie. Heck, I could be."

"Shut up, no you're not!" Jamie retorted as five other Jamies popped into existence from other Jamies already in the room. He was about to yell something else, when one of his new memories from the last six hours suddenly caught his attention.

"Dude," Jamie said, looking at the other Jamie that had originally been in the room, "You _hit_ on Rahne?"

"Yeah, I did, after dinner tonight," said Jamie, suddenly looking smug. "C'mon, you're looking at me like I said something rude or something. All I did was tell her how good she looks."

"You can't fool me, I have your memories, idiot! You said a lot more to her and that! And why!? She has a thing for Roberto, you know that! And if my—your—memories are correct, she just looked at you, really uncomfortable, and continued down the hallway. And me and Rahne have almost _nothing in common_ besides our age. She and Roberto do."

Although it wasn't any of the Jamies' primary concern right now, every ten seconds or so another one or two of them split into existence somewhere in the room. It was quickly getting crowded.

"I don't know if you've noticed or not, but we've _always_ had a crush on her. She's the only girl around here who's close to our age—well, there's X-23, but she's just creepy. And don't forget we have a thing for Kitty, too! Only you're too afraid to ever make any move because of the possibility of being turned down, and because Kitty didn't seem interested that one time at the concert, so you never tried again. Not to mention that, obviously, with our powers, we could have _more than one girlfriend_. But you never seem to think of that, either. Wuss."

"Yeah, I'm sure they'd be really comfortable with _that_."

"You'll never know if you don't ask," Jamie shrugged. "And you never do. Even though _I_ want to. But you don't care about any other Jamie but yourself now, do you?"

Jamie collapsed onto a chair behind him, beats of sweat now pouring down his forehead. For some reason his mind seemed to be getting a bit cloudy, but he forced himself to think for a second.

_This can't really be true… I AM the real Jamie, I know it… so this doesn't make any sense, unless…_

"Ah ha!" Jamie said, standing up quickly from the chair and pointing at the Jamie he had been conversing with. "I've read enough comic books to know what's going on here! Somehow, you're my evil….uh…. twin or something, and you want out! That's it! And you're just playing with my head or…. something."

The other Jamie's face grew red with the accusation as Jamie duplicates started to pile up in the corners of the room. "No I'm not, you….you butt…head! You're the evil twin! You're the one who's… who's, um…. who's only been letting us out when you want us to…do… .something…. for you. And you hit me! Work, work, work, that's all I…. um…. do."

Jamie scratched his head, his mind growing increasingly fuzzy. "Um…. then why, uh…. Why did you suddenly do this to me… um, now, instead of…a, um… uh….long time ago?"

The other Jamie's color was starting to fade from his face as he responded, also muttering, "I think… I'm not sure, but I decided after you left me here today, while… you left me here today, and… did I already say that? Uh, what I meant was…. Um… we're losing control of our powers lately, I think, which means… um… what does it mean?"

"Powers! That's it!" Jamie said, a moment of clarity quickly poking through his increasingly foggy mind. "Maybe multiplying this much is causing my head to, um… um…"

As soon as the moment of clarity appeared, Jamie started to lose grasp of it again. "Man, it's… crowded in here… I think this might be why we're having…. Uh, probl… er, problems, in thinking when there was a…"

"Wait…. What?" said the other Jamie, completely confused now.

"We need to… um…. stop… making… more of us for a second. We gotta… combine with all these guys…"

"Yeah, okay," the other Jamie said, slowly sinking to the floor with all the other Jamies in the room. "Truce while we…"

Both of the Jamies that had been conversing suddenly closed their eyes, sucking in their stomachs as Multiple always did to merge with all of his other duplicates.

They both let out a deep breath, looking around.

"It… dint…."

That was as much as one Jamie got out before any coherent thoughts faded completely from their minds.

* * *

Living in the sewers as a Morlock before Xavier had met him and convinced him to become an X-Man, Ray had seen some pretty weird things, and some pretty weird powers.

He had to admit, though, that the sound down the hallway of a door creaking and then busting open, with an avalanche of more and more Jamies cascading out of the room and down the hallway towards him… yeah, this probably took the cake.

"Jamie! Holy-- what's going—"

Ray quickly saw he wasn't even going to have enough time to ask a question as the huge mass of Jamies expanded outwards towards him at an ever-faster pace. He quickly fired off an electric blast from his hands at the door nearest to him and dove for it, but the roiling mass of Jamies crashed into him, burying him underneath them in seconds as more and more Jamies continued to roll down the hallways.

"Melf! Meeellllf!" Ray yelled as loud as he could, his voice muffled under the fast-moving river of Jamies.

He felt someone grab him by the hand—the only part of his body that hadn't been completely covered up by the Jamie-valanche—and two seconds later, he was standing besides Kurt in the blue-furred Mutant's bedroom, the door to the room burnt by a recent blast of electricity.

"Quick, help me close the door before they start to pour in here!" Kurt yelled, and with a helpful push both he and Ray managed to shove the door shut.

"Whew," Ray said, "Thanks for the save, man. I'd have been smothered if I'd have been out there much longer."

"What the heck is going on!?" Kurt asked.

"Well gee, let me think," Ray replied sarcastically. "I'm _guessing_ Jamie suddenly lost control of his powers or something."

"Oh…. that's bad_. Really_ bad."

"Yeah," Ray agreed, not really knowing what else to say.

"Okay, look," Kurt said, "At this rate Jamie's quickly going to fill up the whole Mansion, and I don't want anyone else to get trampled, so I'm going to port to the different rooms, starting with the ones closest to Jamie's room, and then working my outward until I find everyone. Everytime I find someone else, I'll bring them back here and then we can figure out vhat to do. Okay?"

"Sounds like a plan," Ray agreed, still freaked out by what had just occurred. "Get to it, elf."

* * *

Given that it was fairly late at night and most people were predictably in their rooms with the doors closed, it didn't take Kurt long to teleport everyone else into his room. Over just three minutes, Ray watched the rest of the X-Men appear in the room right before his eyes.

"So what do we do?!" Rahne asked.

"How long is this going to go on?" Bobby asked. "Are Jamies just going to continue to stream out of his room until they flood the entire state, or what?"

"I don't know about you, but I don't hear 'em stopping," Ray said, sticking a thumb in the direction of the door, where continuous loud thumping and rolling sounds were easily heard through the walls. Everyone gathered had to practically yell to hear themselves over it. "So… yeah, I think Bayville is pretty much screwed."

"Hold on a second, let me check something," Kurt said, teleporting out of the room. A second later he ported back in, already soaking wet.

"Yeah, Jamies are already starting to stream out onto the lawn," Kurt said as Ororo reached into a nearby cupboard and brought him a towel. "They're starting to bust out of some of the windows, too."

"This is _insane_," Jubilee said. "How the heck did this happen, anyway?"

"I dunno, but none of the Jamies were responding to my question before they almost crushed me to death," Ray answered. "They all had the same blank expression on their faces. Whatever's happening, it's made him basically brain-dead for whatever reason."

"Whatever happened, I'm afraid we don't have time for inquiries right now," Xavier replied hurriedly. "To break the explanation for this down its simplest level, every time Jamie multiplies, a small portion of his brain is linked between those Jamies, a sort of psychic link, almost, so that his duplicates have his memories and know what the original Jamie wants them to do without him even having to _say_ anything. Before, his duplicates have always been few enough in number where the amount of shared brain capacity in between them was minimal, not taking away perceptibly from any other brain functions. However, if he's lost control of his powers…."

"…Then that would mean that the lights are on, but basically no one's home," Ray finished.

"It's worse than that," Xavier said, steepling his fingers. "Such a massive amount of duplicates have clearly already shut down his higher-order brain functions, but if this continues, the increasing number of links between them all may eventually reach vital brain tissue. So, in other words, no, Ray, Bayville will not be buried under a flood of Jamies. Long before that happens, his number of duplicates will reach its max, and his brain simply won't be able to take the strain. The vital functions will shut down."

"Oh my God… not again…" Kitty said worriedly, burying her face in her hands.

"Then we've gotta get in there, and fast!" Rogue said. Taking off one of her gloves, she continued, "Professor, if someone can get me into Jamie's room, I can try to drain some of this off, like when Jean lost control of her powers."

"With a few other X-Men backing me up, I could cut my way through the clones to his room," X-23 stated.

"No!" Ororo insisted. Calming down slightly, she continued, "X-23, look, we know that any of the clone Jamies will dissipate into thin air when they're hit or cut in some vital way. But the real Jamie won't, and when we get to Jamie's room, we'll have no way of knowing which one _is_ the real one!"

"Besides," Xavier continued, "I'm not sure what caused this to trigger, Rogue, and I don't want you to have to deal with the same problem."

"Can't you or Jean just, y'know, scan their minds until you find the real Jamie?" Bobby asked.

"The Jamies are being produced far too quickly for either of us to sift through," Jean explained. "Without the real Jamie awake and able to guide us, we'd have no way of knowing."

"Well, we gotta do something!" Roberto said, getting frustrated.

"Wait a minute," Xavier said. "Bobby, you may be onto something. By ourselves, Jean is right, neither of us would be able to find the real Jamie. However, if I were to connect to Cerebro…"

"…You could figure it out in just seconds!" Jean finished. "Good thinking, Professor!"

"Well… I helped, too…" Bobby muttered softly to no one in particular, though Jubilee gave him a half-hearted pat on the back.

"Alright then, here's what I'm thinking," Hank said, stepping into the discussion. "Kurt, port Charles straight down to Cerebro, it should still be locked up tight. Then port back up here and grab X-23, Rahne, Scott, Ray, and Jean and port them to Ray and Bobby's room, which is right next to Jamie's. Together, the five of you should be able to make your way 'upstream' to Jamie's room and find the real Jamie with Xavier's telepathic help. Once you find him… knock him out. That should stop the rampant multiplying and cause all the duplicates to dissipate within a few seconds. Then with Jamie's mind suddenly bereft of all that extra activity, Xavier can install a temporary mental block in Jamie to prevent him from using his powers again until we figure out what's going on."

"Wait a minute!" Ray protested as Kurt obediently ported the Professor out of the room. "Isn't he already knocked out?"

"No," Hank said, shaking his head, "He's not in a coma-like state, his mind is just completely overwhelmed and he's unable to string any coherent thoughts together. Whenever Jamie has truly been knocked out, all of his clones have dissipated, remember."

Kurt ported back in just as Hank finished. "Alright, the Professor's hooking himself up to Cerebro as we speak. Is everyone ready?"

As Rahne, Scott, Ray, Jean, and X-23 all laid their hands on Kurt, Jean replied, "We're ready."

* * *

A few seconds later they all appeared in Bobby's room, where the noise from outside the walls adjoining Jamie's room and the hallway was noticeably louder than it had been from Kurt's room.

"Alright, good luck," Kurt said. "I'm porting back to where the others are. Let me if you need me, Jean."

With Jean's nod, Kurt quickly popped out of view.

"Rahne," Scott said to the New Mutant as she morphed into her half-wolf form, "Open the door."

"Hold on a sec," Ray said, quickly gathering up a few sports trophies and pictures from a couple of shelves and dumping them into a drawer before closing it. In response to the others' odd looks, he continued, "What? Don't want any of my valuable stuff to get ruined when Jamies come streaming in here, is all."

"…Fair enough," Scott nodded. "Rahne… go ahead, we're ready."

Rahne winced as she slowly turned the handle. The door quickly swung back all the way as Jamie duplicates started to pour into the room. Rahne hit the wall with a yelp, though a quick psychic force field courtesy of Jean stopped the door from whapping Rahne in the stomach until she could crawl out of the way.

"Let's get to it!" Scott said, unleashing an optic blast straight into the incoming wave of Jamies. Any caught right in the blast's way immediately dissipated into thin air, though it took only a fraction of a second before more filled their places.

The other X-Men got to work right away, slashing or blasting like there was no tomorrow. Electric blasts, adamantium and lupine claws, optic blasts—all slammed into the incoming tide of Jamies nonstop. With the help of Jean, who with considerable effort managed to erect a psychic forcefield in front of them to divert Jamies around the sides, they slowly but surely made their way into the hallway.

"This is _crazy_!" Ray yelled, zapping away at Jamie duplicate after Jamie duplicate. Now Jamies were starting to fall on their heads, as due to the heightened ceiling in the hallway they were being pushed over the top of Jean's forcefield very quickly. Jean quickly extended the forcefield to cover their heads, though the effort was causing her to start sweating profusely.

"Ray, I can't see a thing beyond our little circle!" Scott yelled back as he continued to unleash sweeps of his optic blasts in nearly every direction. "We're in the middle of a human hurricane here! Which way to Jamie's room, left or right?"

"Just follow the direction the dupes are coming from!" Ray shouted back, pointing in the direction they were facing. "Shouldn't be more than another twenty feet or so to his door!"

The gang of five made their way to Jamie's room agonizingly slowly. It seemed like the longer they were at it, the faster the stream of Jamies kept coming.

Rahne started panting, clearly looking utterly exhausted as she continued to claw and occasionally bite away at any Jamies that came near her, though it was becoming noticeable that her swipes were using less and less force as the advance upstream continued.

Next to Cyclops' optic sweeps, X-23 seemed to be the most efficient, cutting into and dissipating up to a dozen Jamies each time she leapt through the air, putting her hand and foot claws to extraordinarily good use.

"I think we're here!" Ray finally shouted after about two minutes of non-stop fighting had passed.

"Where's the door!?" Scott yelled. "I still can't see anything outside of our little circle!"

"Hold on," X-23 stated, carving her way around the side of Jean's forcefield. A few feet to the left, she made a large leap, circling around with her entire body as she cut into a ridiculous number of Jamies at the same time before landing. For a split second, the suddenly empty space showed the entryway to Jamie's room, the door lying on the floor, having been pushed off the hinges. As soon as it appeared, though, the door quickly disappeared again under the nonstop surge of Jamies streaming out from it.

"There! Go!" Scott said, motioning for Jean to enter the room. "We can't keep them from coming in on us from all four sides, we'll hold our own out here!"

Jean nodded and made the forcefield smaller while also lengthening the sides so that it was a complete sphere, only now it was completely surrounding her instead of all five of them. Taking one last glance at Scott, she floated into the heart of the "human hurricane," unable to see anything except the bodies of Jamie duplicates hitting her psy-bubble at an incredibly rapid pace and rolling over it.

_Professor, I'm in Jamie's room, _Jean said telepathically. _This is really getting exhausting-- I need to get this done very, very soon or I'm not going to be able to keep this up any longer. Where's the real Jamie?_

_Jean, this is… very odd…._ came back Xavier's thoughts, both worried and incredibly confused.

_What? What is it!?_

_Jean, there appear to be not one, but TWO "real" Jamies. One a few feet to your left, the other directly ahead of you on the other side of the room._

_…Professor? Are you sure about this?_

_Cerebro is in top working order, Jean, and it literally cannot tell two of the Jamies apart, even regarding the tiniest detail. Look, just do the same thing to both of them, we'll sort this all out later. Both of their brains' activity connecting all of the duplicates to each other is continuing to increase exponentially—I fear we don't have much more than a minute before both of their brains reach "critical mass"._

_Alright, then, if you say so, Professor. I'm on it._

Jean floated through the ocean of Jamies, against the first "stream" until she found the Jamie at its source. Though she caught only a brief glimpse of the "real" Jamie with all the duplicates splitting off of him every second, she was close enough where she could still make out that there was definitely one lying on the ground, still.

"I'm sorry for this, Jamie, if this really is you," Jean said quietly, before letting out a psychic shockwave of moderate force directly at Jamie's head. It socked Jamie against the head, hard-- hard enough where a welt immediately started to form on side of his head. The duplicates just as immediately started to dissipate around her as well, though they were quickly replaced by the duplicates coming from the other source in the room.

Weakening the back end of the forcefield considerably both because of the considerably decreased "flow" of Jamies as well as the fact that she was nearing utter exhaustion, Jean stumbled forward to the other side of the room, and sure enough, there was another Jamie laying on the floor, the expression on his face completely blank.

"Jamie… again, I apologize," Jean said, repeating the procedure she had just completed with the Jamie on the other side of the room.

As the rest of the duplicate Jamies quickly dissolved into thin air, Jean let her psychic bubble dissipate as well, collapsing to the floor and taking in deep gulps of air. From the sound of it, the others outside Jamie's room were doing the same.

A few seconds later, she heard Scott call from outside the room, still rather out of breath, "Jean…. Jean, you did it! But what… what went wrong? Why did I feel… two shockwaves come out of that room?"

"Scott, there's…." Jean paused for a second. The scene before her was simply so odd and incomprehensible, she still wasn't entirely certain she believed it. "There's…. _two_ 'real' Jamies…"

* * *

Hank sighed and tossed his glasses and the papers he was holding onto the table in frustration, pinching his sinuses. The other instructors, who were all in a meeting room in the basement of the Mansion, were taken slightly aback at Hank's sudden outburst.

"…Hank?" Ororo asked, concerned.

"I'm…. sorry, Ororo. Everyone. It's just… this doesn't make any sense. At all. Jamie's powers going haywire, okay, I understand that. It tends to happen now and then with Mutants during puberty. But ending up with two 'real' Jamies after this whole thing was solved? His powers don't work that way. Every duplicate of Jamie is him_, in every sense of the word_. Yes, they are technically independent minds, but they're so closely linked I don't see how any duplicate could actually disagree with any of the others, much less absorb the 'real' Jamie into him."

"Well, apparently it did happen," Piotr commented. "We need only look upstairs to see the evidence."

"Wait, so which Jamie _is_ the real one?" Scott queried.

"That's the problem," Xavier replied. "Neither I nor Jean can tell. We've scanned both of their minds fairly thoroughly, but you know how Jamie's memories merge with all of his duplicates' when he absorbs them into himself. Up until right before the incident earlier tonight began, both Jamies have nearly the exact same memories. Where their memories diverge is just a few minutes before they both lose control of their powers. Apparently, one Jamie—whom we're currently calling 'Jamie A'-- is convinced he's the real one who was living his normal life until he was sucked into his apparent duplicate a few weeks ago, soon after Logan and Sam's funeral—"

"Wait, _weeks_ ago?" Ororo asked. "Then how come nothing else occurred until now?"

"Another question I can't answer for you," Beast said, tapping his claws on the table, still frustrated as he continued to absentmindedly scan the notes on Jamie's powers he had thrown on the table.

"Regardless," Xavier said, continuing, "Jamie A is convinced he was somehow split off this morning, and merged with the other Jamie—whom we're calling 'Jamie B', obviously—and took control of his—or the original Jamie's—life for the remainder of the evening. Later on, he split off Jamie B again, and that's when the confrontation between the two started."

"And what about Jamie B? What does he think?" Ororo asked.

"The same thing," Xavier responded with a sigh. "That he's the original Jamie. The difference is, all of this comes as more of a surprise to Jamie B, who never thought there was any such problem until today, when he noticed he was starting to lose control of his powers. Before he could tell me about it, though, he thinks Jamie A absorbed him this afternoon and then split him off again earlier tonight."

"Hold on a second," Scott said, "You said earlier that whenever Jamie merges with his duplicates, their memories are combined again, and you also mentioned that both Jamies' memories are identical up to a few hours ago. Well, then--- how come each one has a different interpretation of what happened?"

"It's very odd," Jean interjected. "Both DO have the same memories—when they're merged. However, for whatever reason when they split, both of these Jamies keep their individual memories, their individual experiences of whenever they were split in the past."

"However, their own individual spots of unique memories only go back those same couple of weeks I already mentioned," Xavier replied.

"Another thing that shouldn't have happened," Beast interjected.

"Ugh. This is making my head hurt," Scott mumbled.

"You're not the only one," Beast said. "Both of the Jamies—whom we're temporarily holding in separate holding cells because they'd tear each other apart if we didn't—have really severe migraines from their experiences earlier tonight. After all, their brains were straining themselves nearly to the breaking point—and though it was needed, Jean knocking both of them out didn't help them deal much with the pain, either."

"So does this… Jamie split….have any connection at all with his powers getting out of control?' Ororo asked.

"I hate to be repeating myself yet again, but we don't know," Beast said. "It's an awfully big coincidence if they were unrelated, but that in and of itself is not proof enough."

"What do we do, then?" Piotr said. "Surely we cannot keep both Jamies locked up down here indefinitely."

"Xavier's mental blocks should keep them from multiplying any more until we can get a handle on what's going on," Beast said. "I'm going to try to convince them both to leave the other alone, at first. Then we'll see where it goes from there, but it looks like our ranks have, for all intents and purposes, increase—"

"Hank! Professor! Anyone!" came Rahne's shout ringing from far down the basement corridor. "Come quickly! I know which one is the real Jamie!"

* * *

While the instructors had been discussing Jamie's condition in a meeting room down the hall, Rahne had just been staring at the two Jamies, locked in adjacent cells, both laying down with ice bags on their heads.

"Jamie… what's _happened_ to you?" Rahne said softly, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Nothing!" both Jamies muttered at the same time, careful not to speak too loudly because of their migraines.

"This duplicate of me just suddenly decided to fight with me for no reason—"

"—This stupid duplicate absorbed me—ME, the real Jamie!—weeks ago—"

"—No, you absorbed me earlier today when we were playing soft—"

"No, I re-absorbed you into me, because I'm the real Jamie in the first—"

"Stop it!" Rahne said, interrupting them both as she clamped her hands over her ears. "Just STOP it!"

Calming herself down some, she let down her arms before continuing, "One of ye is lying. And I know Xavier 'n Jean can't even decide which one of ye it is, but sooner or later, you'll betray yourself."

Rahne turned away, starting to walk away from the cells in disgust.

"Rahne, wait!" called one of the Jamies. Turning back, Rahne saw that it was the Jamie in the cell with a "B" hastily scribbled above it that was talking to her.

"What?!" Rahne said, turning around, hands on her hips.

"I just… I wanted to, uh… apologize for something I said to you earlier tonight. I mean, technically it wasn't me, it was him, but… he—uh, I—sorta hit on you and said things that weren't, um… appropriate. And, um… I'm sorry."

Rahne stared at Jamie B for several seconds, unflinching, before suddenly turning to one side and calling out down the hallway, "Hank! Professor! Anyone! Come quickly! I know which one is the real Jamie!"

A few seconds later came Hank, running on all fours towards Rahne before stopping.

"Rahne, what is it?! How do you know?"

"Because of what one of 'em—Jamie B—said to me," Rahne said, pointing towards the appropriate Jamie.

"What did he say?"

"He said--- um, well, he apologized for something he said earlier t' me," Rahne said. "Something that seemed rather… out of character compared to the Jamie I know."

Beast glanced between the two Jamies before putting his hand on Rahne's shoulder and leading her back down the hallway, muttering, "What do you mean, 'out of character'? Tell me exactly what Jamie told you earlier tonight."

Rahne repeated it, blushing a little as she did so.

"Hrrm…" Beast said, visibly taken a little aback at what she had just said but not betraying it in his voice. "Rahne, what you say meshes with the memories Xavier and Jean have scanned from both Jamies, but… it doesn't prove anything."

"What? Why not?! I thought it odd—the real Jamie never would have talked to me like that!"

Beast sighed, patting Rahne on the shoulder before he continued to lead her slowly down the hallway and towards the Mansion elevator at the far end. "Rahne, I know that you have the same general beliefs as I do… Have you ever heard of the phrase, 'There, but for the Grace of God, go I'?"

"Er… I think maybe once or twice… but why—"

"It was purportedly said by a man named John Bradford, a priest from back in the sixteenth century," Beast continued. "Bradford was said to have uttered it as he watched a criminal prepare to be executed. Its meaning is often extrapolated to be, 'If I had not made the choices God had wanted me to, I would have ended up like that.'

"The reason I bring this up, Rahne, is that there are often a few critical moments in life where our choices in life determine, in some large part, who we are. And the finer you want to dissect exactly who we are, then the more of those moments we can find in our past. The finer you dissect it, it also becomes less and less obvious during some of the more morally ambiguous choices we've made if we've done the right thing. Did we do what God _wanted_ us to do? Obviously not all of us have, otherwise we wouldn't have mass murderers, gangs, that sort of thing. And obviously not all of us have always obeyed God, otherwise we'd be perfect, and of course no human is perfect. We're all in the middle, making constant choices that either go with or against God's will, though sometimes we may not be sure, even after careful consideration, if those choices were the right ones. And of course, we can never find out exactly how we'd have turned out if we'd have made a choice differently, as there's only one of us. As a matter of fact, there's entire theories generated from this fact, that everyone time one of us makes a choice, a different universe is instantly created for each of those choices, resulting in an infinite multiverse.

"However, from what we've gathered from both of these Jamies' minds, they both honestly, really believe that they are the original Jamie. But, they also both remember being reabsorbed into the other, which puts both of their claims in question. I'm not sure how or why this whole situation happened, but one of the Jamies thinks he hasn't existed in the 'real world' for _years_ now. If that's true, than the Jamie you know isn't the real Jamie at all, but in fact a duplicate who somehow absorbed the real Jamie. Though it's also quite possible that the Jamie you know is the real Jamie. Or, on a more somber note, the real, original Jamie could have disappeared soon after he first discovered he had Mutant powers-- the first time he started out in one place, created clones, and then moved to another location by having one of the clones reabsorb all of the other Jamies. It's just that he _seemed_ to have lived on because all of the clones have the same aggregated memories when reabsorbed."

"So… there's no real Jamie?" Rahne said, tears starting to tell up in her eyes again. "They're both fakes?"

"I'm not sure," Beast reiterated. "I said it's _possible_. It's one of those things I just don't know, that we may never know. But my point is, one of these Jamies represents one path, the other Jamie another path, however slightly different that path may be. Just because one acts a bit differently from the other doesn't mean he's any less 'real'."

"So, then… what are we going to do with them?" Rahne said as they both reached the elevator doors.

"We can't really 'do' anything with them," Hank admitted, pressing the button on the wall to bring the elevator down to the basement level. "We're going to make sure they both understand that they are not to attack each other, no matter how much they each believe the other is a fake, and then we're going to get on with our lives. I know it'll be very confusing for some time, but there's nothing humane we can really do. I mean, suppose we do eventually discover one of them is the 'fake' Jamie. What do we do then? They clearly are refusing to merge with the other again, and that would only solve the problem short-term regardless. The only other option would be to kick the 'fake' Jamie out of the Institute, but that hardly sounds fair."

"I…. I suppose you're right… still, I can't imagine how they both feel right now…"

"Don't worry about it," Hank said, patting Rahne on the shoulder again as the elevator doors opened. "Now, you'd better get to bed. It's almost five in the morning, and you've got school tomorrow. The other instructors and I still have a few things to discuss down here."

"Alright," Rahne said sadly. "See ye in the morning, Mr. McCoy."

"Goodnight, Rahne."

* * *

He stared at the satellite imagery in front of him for a moment longer. It seemed that all of the X-Men had finally gone to bed, after what had assuredly been a late night.

He quickly saved the satellite's observations from the night, then powered down the computer. As the whine of the last cooling fan died down, he took out a personal tape recorder and flipped it on.

"This is recording number fifteen, dated April 14th. The moment we had been waiting for finally occurred tonight—constant scanning of the Xavier Institute by one of our satellites showed a sudden and exponential increase in the number of Mutant signatures in the Mansion, nearing fifteen thousand at its peak. Had it gone on much longer, the subject—or, I should say now, subjects—would no doubt have died. Minimal damage to the surrounding area, as the Mansion grounds were large enough to mostly contain the subjects' duplicates, stacked on top of each other to such a great extent as they were. Now, however, the number of Mutant signatures shown existing in the Institute is back to its original number—plus one.

"I can only assume from this that my experiment was at least partially successful. The subject does not remember his encounter with our operative, or else the X-Men would have likely tracked me down here, instead of continuing with their daily schedules as our satellite imagery showed. This means that the memory-erasing serum I had told the operative to inject the subject with must have been successful.

"The other serum he had been injected with was less successful, but the wanted result was still obtained. It essentially split the subjects' consciousness, resulting in an eventual duplication of the subject—and a true duplication at that, as both have not merged back together again, so I can only assume that they are both of completely independent mind now and do not want to give that up again. The serum exacerbated the subjects' already tenuous hold on his powers, however, which was not expected to the extent that occurred. Luckily for us, the X-Men lived up to their reputation and stopped the rampant multiplication before it became too taxing on our subjects.

"My final recommendation is that current projects to duplicate Weapon X's DNA halt for the time being. With a perfection of this serum—creating real, bonafide duplicates of one person but eliminating the free will that comes along with it—we could create entire armies overnight. Jamie Madrox could become more useful to us than Weapon X or his clone ever were."

The End


End file.
